


O' Brother Where Art Thou?

by Lyowyn



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Brothers, Humor, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, theological discourse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 01:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20331451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyowyn/pseuds/Lyowyn
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley arrange a play-date for Adam, Warlock, and Greasy Johnson.





	O' Brother Where Art Thou?

The whole ridiculous chain of events began one Saturday in August, some five years after all that business with Armageddon. Aziraphale and Crowley were having a perfectly nice time, sitting in St. James’s Park feeding the ducks—not because they needed to meet in secret anymore, but simply because they had gotten into the habit, and it was a nice way to spend an afternoon.

They had spent five blissfully uneventful years, just enjoying life and all the pleasures that Earth had to offer, when Aziraphale had to go and say, “You know, I’ve been thinking that we ought to introduce Adam to his brother.”

Crowley’s face sort of crumpled in on itself in horror. If he had been drinking something, he would have spit it out. “His _what_?”

“Well, Warlock of course. He is the Youngs’ legitimate son, you know, by blood. That _would _make them brothers, of a sort.” Aziraphale laughed. “It sounds like the beginning of a Dickens novel. We really should introduce them. It’s the least you could do after the whole baby mix-up. I suppose we should include the other boy as well. Do you know what happened to him?”

“No idea,” Crowley said, hollowly.

“That nun should know, Sister Mary Whatsit.”

“Chatty.”

“No,” Aziraphale said. “That isn’t it.” He thought for a long moment, but couldn’t come up with the right synonym. He had never been very good with remembering names. “In any case, we ought to track the other one down as well, and set up a play date.”

“A _play date_? They’re what, fifteen now? Sixteen? Sixteen year olds do not have play dates. Not the way you’re thinking. They have the kind with tongues and sports metaphors.”

Aziraphale frowned. “Do you think we should take them to a cricket match or something then? I was thinking a museum trip, or perhaps the theatre.”

Crowley rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “That’s not what I meant, Angel.”

“Sixteen already,” Aziraphale continued on blithely. “We really should look in on Warlock and see how he’s getting on. I feel we’ve been a bit remiss in our duties as godfathers. I know he wasn’t the right child, but we _did_ spend six years with him, and then we just up and disappeared when we realized the mistake. No word, we just abandoned him. He’s going to think we didn’t like him.”

“We don’t like him,” Crowley said. “He’s _horrible_.”

Aziraphale’s face made an expression that very clearly said that he agreed but would never say so. “If he’s horrible, then it’s your fault. That would be your demonic influence at work.”

“That little brat didn’t need any demonic influencing, and maybe you just weren’t doing a very good job at angelically influencing him. Did you think of that? We’re just lucky that he didn’t actually turn out to be the Antichrist, or we would have all been fucked.”

Aziraphale made a reluctant noise of agreement.

“This is a horrible idea,” Crowley continued. “He’ll be a bad influence on Adam. That’s how awful he is; he’d be a bad influence on _the Antichrist_.”

“Do you think we messed it up that badly?” Aziraphale asked, looking terribly guilty. “I mean, he’s just a normal child, except that he had an angel and a demon fighting over his soul for his formative years. That can’t be healthy. It’s bound to have had some effect.”

“Oh, it wasn’t our fault. Neither of us were trying all that hard. That was the whole point; we wanted him to grow up neutral. It’s not our fault that he turned out to be such a little shite. If you want to blame someone, blame the parents who were too concerned with their own lives to pay any attention to him, so they made up for it by spoiling him rotten. That’s all it is. It isn’t some kind of philosophical crisis. He’s just an ordinary little spoiled brat who’s going to grow up to be just another rich bastard.”

“When you put it like that,” Aziraphale said, “I feel even worse. It sounds like all he really needs is some love and attention. We have a responsibility to do better by him, and he should have the opportunity to meet his bothers.”

Crowley let out a long sigh. “This isn’t going to end well.”

“Nonsense,” Aziraphale said. “They’re brothers. It will be fine.”

“Remember Cain and Abel?” Crowley asked.

Aziraphale winced. “That was your fault.”

“I was just doing my job,” Crowley defended. “It isn’t my fault that you were too busy sampling the harvest to pay attention to what was going on. Cain was a hardworking farmer, just as devoted as his brother was. He couldn’t help that God likes sheep better than grain. Then Abel comes poncing in, rubbing it in his face—like a right pompous git. What did you expect to happen?”

“Not murder,” Aziraphale said.

“Yeah, well, trust me, Abel had it coming. If you hadn’t been busy filling his head with how righteous he was, and how devoted, and how _beloved of God_, then he might not have been such an arrogant little wanker.”

“That doesn’t excuse murder.”

“It should,” Crowley said. “That’s going to be my next great work—the ‘they deserved it’ defense in murder trials.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “It’s the first commandment, Crowley. Thou shalt not kill.”

“No it isn’t,” Crowley said, aghast and delighted all at once.

“Of course it is,” Aziraphale said, frowning. “Thou shalt not kill. Right there at the top. It’s the most important one.”

“It isn’t,” Crowley argued. “This, this right here, is why you haven’t fallen. You don’t know God well enough to realize what a huge narcissistic bastard He is. The first commandment isn’t, **_Thou Shalt Not Kill_**, it’s **_Thou Shalt Have No Other God before Me_**. Then, it’s **_Thou Shalt Not Make Unto Thee Any Graven Image_**_,_then_ **Thou** **Shalt Not Take the Name of The Lord, Thy God, in Vain**, _and **_Remember the Sabbath Day to Keep it Holy_**. That’s four commandments all to say how great He is, and how the humans had just better remember it, then a bit about honoring your parents, and _then_ He gets to the bit about not murdering people. Shows you exactly where His priorities are.”

Aziraphale looked a bit sheepish. “That can’t be right.”

“Trust me,” Crowley said. “I was there. Not that it did any good… er, _evil_. That Moses was the most bull-headed, stubborn idiot I ever met. Wandering around for forty years in the desert... I tried to tell him, ‘Let’s just stop off over at the next settlement, pick up some camels, ask for directions-- maybe stick around for a bit. It seems like a nice place. Who needs the promised land anyway?’ But, do you think he listened? No, of course not. Stubborn sod spends forty years wandering around in the dunes, then when we finally get there, he catches one look at his precious promised land, and drops dead on the spot. _What a waste of time._”

“I wasn’t there for any of that,” Aziraphale admitted.

“I _know_ that. It would have been a bit hard to miss your grumbling, if you’d been there tramping around with us in the desert for forty years. Mind you, there was plenty of grumbling already, but you would have been miserable—lugging about all your scrolls with not a restaurant in sight.”

“Yes, I daresay I would have been,” Aziraphale agreed. “I was there for the beginning though, with the basket. He was a very cute baby, despite the circumstances. And Egypt… the plagues.”

“Yeah He was big on wrath in those days—_hypocrite_.”

Aziraphale sighed. “You know, after six thousand years, your idea of _theological discourse_ is starting to get a bit stale.”

“If I’m going to be damned for asking questions, then I’m damned well going to question. You can keep on being the faithfully devoted little angel, if you want, but I’ve got to say some of His actions over the years haven’t been all that morally sound. As if the Ark wasn’t bad enough, then He’s got to go and kill all the firstborn sons of Egypt. I spent the whole night going around painting every door I could find with lamb’s blood, and I still only saved a tenth of them.”

Aziraphale’s face softened. “You _didn’t_.”

Crowley’s cheeks flushed, but he didn’t back down. “Course I bloody well did. Killing innocent kids because their parents were part of the currently sociologically acceptable practice of keeping slaves? It wasn’t their fault. Where’s the sense in that?”

Aziraphale beamed at him—all angelic glow, and heart-melting smile. “Oh, _Crowley_.”

“Lay off,” Crowley grumbled. He dumped the rest of his bread pieces into the pond and started to walk away. “Well come on then, let’s go track down the nun. I’m sure they adopted the other one out to someone. My side isn’t as big on infanticide as yours.”

“_Our _side doesn’t approve of infanticide at all,” Aziraphale mumbled as he threw his own bread in and hurried after him.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I had this about finished, but I've been having a lot of technical complications lately, so I'm working on rewriting a good chunk of what was lost. I'll post it as I get it patched back together.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated, and if you enjoyed this, please check out my other Good Omens fics.


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